Fish

Salmon in Italian Beer Cream Sauce is a simple, one pot, crazy delicious way to make dinner in under 20 minutes.

It’s fitting, don’t you think? A dish that’s both easy and transitional, an echo of the month in a way. September is the most transitional of all months, far more than January and closely followed by June. It’s changing of the weather, a realization that not only is the year mostly over but we’re nearing the holidays, it’s back to school, back from vacation, back into sweaters.

I wanted to make a dish using those last gasps of summer produce, but nodded at the chill filling the air. Something quick (because we have enough to so this month amiright?), but something you could serve to guests. Or just something that felt special even for an average Tuesday.

So I did this, and I hope you like it. I LOVED it, and I’ll make it again soon. If you make it, let me know. Getting Instagram notifications that you’ve made, loved and posted one of my recipes makes my day. For real.

Heat the oil in a pan over medium high heat. Add the salmon, skin side down, cooking until the skin is crispy, about 5 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side until fish is cooked to desired doneness. Remove from pan, set aside.

Melt the butter in the pan, scraping the brown bits from the bottom.

Stir in the onions, cooking until starting to brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic, cooking for about 30 seconds.

Sprinkle with cornstarch, stir to combine.

Pour in the beer, scraping to deglaze the pan. Allow to simmer until reduced by about half.

Stir in the cream.

A handful at a time, stir in the cheese. Stir until completely melted before adding more cheese.

Stir in the garlic powder and remaining 1 teaspoon salt and pepper.

Stir in the spinach, cooking until wilted. Remove from heat, stir in the tomatoes and basil.

This is because I don’t care. I don’t care that “blogging is dead,” so says everyone who spikes higher on SEO than I do. I don’t care that this is not a very googleable recipe, therefore it won’t earn me much incoming search engine traffic.

Your capacity to care about all the things is limited (also known as: how many fucks you have to give), so I really have to limit what I care about to the things that matter most, and let the rest lie like Chowder Jones in the sunlit patch of my living room.

I do, however, care about you. I care that you like what I’m doing, probably far more than I’d ever let on. I care that you make my recipe, post them on Instagram and tag me.

Honestly, it makes my day (unless your setting are set to private and I can’t see it). I care that you drink beer that you like, and I care a LOT when that beer does heart-melty things like give a portion of the profits from ALL of their beer to nonprofit organizations like The Chicago Women’s Health Center.

Middle Brow, a brewery out of Chicago does this. The remarkable thing, if you don’t know much about beer, is how hard this is.

Craft beer has a remarkably low-profit margin, some newer craft breweries hardly break even. It’s hard enough when you just have to worry about your own bills, but then to factor in giving some of that small margin away; it’s truly philanthropic. They’ve been doing it for years, so clearly they have somethings figured out.

When making these tarts—and freeing myself from all the things I don’t care about—it was easy to focus on the things I do. I did, after all, spend my first few years post-college as a social worker for gang kids.

Once you’re immersed in the world of non-profit-helping-people-organizations, it’s stick with you. And so does this beer. Chicago, you’re lucky to call this place a local spot.

In a small pot stir together the shallots, vinegar, beer, and tarragon. Bring to a boil, cooking until reduced by half, about 8 minutes, remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

In small food processor or blender, add the yolks, salt, and pepper. While the processor is running, slowly add the vinegar reduction and melted butter, process until thickened (if you’re having a hard time getting the sauce to thicken, add to a sauce pan, heat slightly until thickened).

*To make ahead: make the tart crust, store in an airtight container. Make filing, store in a separate container. Make the sauce, store in an airtight container. To serve: reheat the sauce in the top of a double boiler, add 1 tablespoon beer, whisk until warmed. Plate the tarts, fill with crab mixture, top with sauce and serve!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of BC Ale Trail and Tourism New West, Discover Surrey and Tourism Delta. All opinions and text are mine.

TO COME

Day two began how all days should begin: with fried chicken. River Market in New West is a destination all on it’s own. Fresh bread, craft coffee, homemade soap, produce, and restaurants. It’s a lovely place to get lost in. I impatiently waited outside the doors of Freebird Chicken Shack to get my hands on some of the fried chicken I’d been hearing so much about, and it didn’t disappoint.

Of course, after that I need a beer. I traveled a few miles to Central City Brewery, one of the most well distributed craft breweries in Canada. With award winning beer and spirits, it’s not hard to see why.

My suggestions: Sour No. 2 Sour Kriek

The afternoon was spent in one of the more unexpected locations: Crescent Beach, a charming little beach town that felt equal parts far away destination and small town quaint. I lingered over oysters, fish & chips, and beer at Hooked Fish Bar, then spent a few hours paddling around the inlet on a stand up paddleboard. An afternoon that went by too quickly and left a beautiful sun soaked memory.

The trip ended in the perfect way, a pot of garlic beer mussels and one of my favorite beers from Four Winds Brewing at Hawthorne Beer Market, a place I could have stayed for hours. The beer list was extensive, the food was fantastic, and the service was outstanding. It’s already bookmarked for my next trip up there. And there will definitely be a next trip.

Coming home I had to recreate the recipe, full of garlic, heat and beer, it was impossible to stop thinking about.

I needed a code word, a signal that it was too much. It was devised as a way to tell me that I needed to knock it down a few pegs. When I drink, I get a little less reserved and a little (a lot) more inappropriate.

The people in my life needed a code word to let me know that I needed to pull it back. The code is: “Mississippi.” Which spawned the term “Mississippied” as in: “Jackie, you got Mississippied four times last night!”

I tell you this because although I seem a bit reserved on this platform, it’s not because I don’t want to spill my guts to you. I do, but it should only take place in an arena where it’s just between us, where it won’t be immortalized in digital print.

A venue where you can Mississippi me if it gets to be too much.

Last week was a reminder to me that I can do that, if we ever do meet for pints at a pub. After a post that was uncharacteristically vulnerable, I had so many of you reach out, ask if I was OK, tell me that you’d felt the same way from time to time.

So thank you. Thank you for reading what I write, responding to it, and reaching out when you have feelings too.

As a thank you, I made you some grilled lobster, it’s one of my favorite dishes to make for friends.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the garlic, salt, and beer. Turn off heat and allow to steep for ten minutes.

Cut the lobster tails in half, lengthwise. Clean out any vein that may still be there.

Place the lobster tails in the pot of butter for ten minutes, allowing to soak in the butter.

Remove from butter (reserve butter).

Place lobster tails on the grill, cut side down, close the lid. Cook until the tails turn bright red and the flesh has turned white, about five minutes. Turn the tails over, baste with the butter mixture.

The patio is always full of people who don’t just know the beer, they know the story. They know the owners, the jobs they held before the lure of the frustration of brewing on a tiny system in the middle of an ocean pulled them into an uncommon life. The beer is always brewed on a system that looks to be just a tick bigger than a home brew system, and it’s running around the clock.

This weekend, on a small island, I stumbled upon Island beer. True to form, the patio was full of the people who run the line between patron and family. The system was on display behind the counter, in a stage between cleaning and brewing, and the beer was beautiful. Earlier this year I was on a tiny Island in the caribbean and found the same sort of beer-island-family that welcomes you in, serves you beer and wants to know your story.

Island beer is different. It doesn’t want to take over the world. It doesn’t seek a buy-out. It doesn’t concern itself with mass distribution. It’s a bit like life on the island. There is always a story of hard it was the get even that small system onto the island, a bigger one is just a far reaching fantasy. Island beer wants to be there for the locals, a backdrop to the stories they tell and the life they lead. It’s consistent, and memorable. It’s worth seeking out, pulling up a seat in the tap room and asking the owners to tell you about how they got started. You might find yourself being treated like part of the family before the end of the night.

Next time you’re on an island, look for the beer. Then find out the story.

1 long French baguette, cut into 3 inch slices, split to resemble buns

2 cups baby arugula

2 large tomatoes, sliced

Instructions

Cut the fish into 1-inch strips, sprinkle with 1 teaspoon salt.

In a medium bowl stir together the buttermilk and beer. Add the fish to the bowl, making sure all fish is submerged. Allow to sit for ten minutes while you prep the dredge.

In a separate bowl stir together the cornmeal, flour, creole seasoning, and remaining ½ teaspoon salt.

Add 3 to 4 inches of oil in a pot. Clip a deep fry thermometer onto the side. Heat the oil to 350F, adjusting heat to maintain that temperature.

A few at a time, remove the fish strips from the buttermilk, allowing the excess to drip off. Add fish to the cornmeal dredge, tossing until well coated. Add to the oil, frying until golden, about 4 minutes. Remove from oil and allow to drain on a wire rack.

In a small bowl stir together the sour cream, and sriracha.

Spread the sour cream on the insides of the sliced baguette. Fill with a few pieces of fish, arugula and sliced tomato. Serve immediately.

I’m on a layover in Salt Lake right now, in an airport bar resisting the urge to hair-of-the-dog my way out of sleep deprivation and a small sprinkling of a hangover. I’m going to tell you something that will make you think I’m crazy, but I already rolled that dice when I told about the time I decided to be a vacuum salesman and that time I assaulted a waiter in Spain: I like layovers. I like the energy, this mix of people, the contentment of knowing there isn’t a lot expected of me at this moment, the brief pause in a day otherwise filled with travel, the calm before I get back home and jump back into my life. I look at the faces of the other travelers and wonder if we’d have been friends if we’d ever really met. I wonder if we’ve ever been in the same place before this, or if we ever will again.

I made a decision two years ago—in the midst of the biggest personal crisis of my life— to figure out how to enjoy my time instead of “kill time”. The last thing I need to do is go around killin’ the moments of my life that don’t please me as much as I’d hoped, and then later complain when it goes by too fast. Maybe all moments aren’t amazing, or even traditionally enjoyable, but as my theory goes: if you can figure out how to enjoy a layover then just maybe those great moments will be even better. Maybe not. But at least I’m not just going’ around killing off moments in the prime of my life.

In a brewery, doing my best to learn how to turn what some see as an ugly industrial space with bad lighting into beautiful photos. Mostly, I’m a self-taught photographer. I took classes, read books, watched a decades worth of YouTube videos, sat in online workshops, and even joined an online photo mentorship group. But I always feel behind, always feel like I’m not quite there.

I’ve often wondered if I’ll ever be where I want, if “arriving” in a creative sense even exists. I’ve worried that I’ll never be able to give people the images I want to shoot. But I’ve never once thought about giving up. Not once.

It’s easy to get pulled into the undertow of comparison. It’s easy to see more clearly how far we have to go rather than the long road we’ve already traveled. In those moments I tell myself, “Keep your head down and keep going.” It works. It moves me forward. I get closer all the time to the place I want to be.

At the end of the day, that’s all we have. We have the ability to move forward, to drive closer to the life we want and the people we want to be. Perfection is a dangerous myth that robs us of contentment. Let’s just be able to sit here, in the gratitude that we are moving forward.

Let’s take a few minutes each week, grab a beer, grab some food, and just be content. Harder than it sounds, but we can do. Even if we need a few beers first.

In a large pot over medium heat add the beer and 2 cups of warm water. Bring to a simmer and slowly add the grits. Cook over a low simmer, stirring occasionally, until thick and tender. Add water ¼ cup at a time when the grits begin to dry out.

Once the grits are cooked stir in the cheddar, butter, cream, salt and pepper.

Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat (don’t turn the heat too high, medium heat will render more fat than high heat) until the bacon is crispy. Remove the bacon, set aside. Pour off all the bacon fat except about 1 tablespoon. Return pan to heat, melt the butter in the skillet.

Add the shrimp and spices, toss to coat. Pour in the beer, cooking until shrimp are cooked through, about 5 minutes.

This, in one form or another, is my go-to dinner. It’s a pantry recipe and one of the main reasons I always have coconut milk on hand. I’ve made it with every imaginable protein, and even mushrooms when I’m the mood to only consume plants. I’ve replaced the chard with spinach, arugula, basil and even cilantro and it holds up. It’s reliable and filling. It’s a way to make dinner when I don’t have the energy to think. I can double the shallots or the curry paste and it still gives me what I want. I can add tomatoes or jalapeños and I still love it. I can make a triple batch and have it for next three days and It’s still a favorite.

Sometimes, in the midst of trying to give you a recipe that will be clink-inducing-share-worthy I forget that you also need the solid standby recipes that won’t let you down. The culinary equivalent of the faded Levis that you’ve been wearing since high school and that friend that always drives you to the airport even if it’s 5 am. So here it is, my faded-Levis-airport-guy recipe.

I remember the walls were dirty. Before he tried to push the glass table through my torso, I could only focus on the stains spread like a grease constellation across the Navajo White walls of the government subsidized apartment I was trapped in. His mom’s girlfriend wrapped her dark, sinewy arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides. Their tandem screams, dulled by the shock that had numbed my brain, tumbled together like puppies rolling down a hill…

I have these narratives rolling around inside me, fighting to get to the surface. They wake me up at night. Sentences form out of nowhere that take me back to a forgotten time and place.

Mostly, it’s repressed memories from my days in Hollywood, and the times I worked with gang members in South Central Los Angeles. It’s parts, mostly, of experiences I can’t remember entirely. Feelings searching for words. But the thing is, experiences are made up of an amalgamation of your senses. It’s a big ball of touch, smell, taste, sight, and sound. Words don’t fit well in that sensation cocktail. Even when the words leave me, I know they are so small, so inadequate. But it’s all I have. It has me, more than I have it. I’ll never claim that editing and technical writing is my calling in life, it’s always been a struggle. But creative expressions via words and images has sucked me into it’s undertow.

So, please. Give me a pass when the verbs and tenses don’t stand in a perfect line, and typos come en masse. I’m trying to turn feelings into words, and there is only one part of that I can do at a time.

I was at a brewery in Southern California early last year and a brewer handed me a small cup of warm wort to sample from a batch he was in the middle of brewing. “What is it?” I asked. He shrugged.

“It was a bunch of left over bits from bags and batches. I just decided to brew something with it. Maybe a Hoppy Brown Porter? or…an India Chocolate Ale..with… Never mind. I have no idea.”

Unlike wine, which is often labeled for the grapes that produced it, beer is hard to name. Sure, there are certain designations that make it easy to classify some brews, but there are plenty that don’t fit any category. This isn’t a problem as much as it’s an opportunity. It’s evidence that beer is evolving at a pace so rapid, categories have a hard time keeping up.

In 1987 the Great American Beer Festival had just 12 categories in which to award medals. In 2015, there will be 92, many with subcategories. It’s a spectacular example of the evolution of beer.

For this recipe I used a beer with a designation that’s only been recognized for the past handful of years: the Black IPA. Also called a Cascading Dark Ale or American Black Ale, it’s a hybrid of different styles. It has the looks of a porter with the spirit of an IPA. It has a bit of the roasty characters of a darker beer, but tastes light and hoppy like an IPA. Should you try it? Absolutely. Will you love it? Who knows, but at least you’ll have tried it. That’s part of the adventure of beer.

It’s a question get asked all the time. The problem is, it’s a trap. There is no right answer. If I talk about well-distributed beers I love, “Black Butte Porter is a great beer,” or “Rogue Hazelnut Brown Nectar is one of my favorite brown ales,” I’ve disappointed people looking for insider knowledge.

If I talk about the whales (hard to find beers), “Pliny is a great beer, but so is Heady Topper,” people see me as a snob who’s just following the craft beer sheep pack. If I mention a beer they have never heard of, “Wow, Blitz Pack from Huminstat Brewing is amazing,” they have no frame of reference, maybe it’s a terrible beer, or maybe I just made it up (I did).

The real issue is that I don’t have an answer, and it’s mostly a bullshit question. I don’t have a favorite food either, it changes with my mood and what I feel like eating that day. My favorite beer does the same, and I like beer that lives in harmony with the food on my plate.

When I go to a beer bar I ask the bartender what he drinks, or if there is anything exciting on tap right now. Anything special release? Anything new? There are days when I just want a stout, and during hop harvest season I want to drink all the fresh hopped beers I can find.

If I go to a brewery that specializes in a specific style, give me one of those. Maybe it’s because I’m not picky, I’m a very go-with-the-flow person. Or maybe I just believe in adventure over comfort. Or maybe I just love all the beer.

So the answer to the question, “What’s your favorite beer?” is most likely, “Whatever you want to serve me.”

Because you buy the beer, and I’ll make the food. I’ll drink what you bring, and you’ll eat what I make.

In a large pot over high heat add the beer, honey, vinegar, chili sauce, garlic powder, and ginger. Bring to a boil. Stirring occasionally, boil until bubbles have mostly subsided and turned glossy and the mixture has thickened, about ten minutes.

The first time I had fish tacos I was somewhere off the coast of Mexico. I was 17, sunburned and a little confused. After a few crumbled pesos changed hands I was hastily pushed onto a boat, clung to an orange vest for about twenty minutes and gratefully exited the floating death trap onto the beach of what looked like an uninhabited country.

A small woman with sun-leathered featured stood watch near a metal grate set over a hole in the ground. From the beach I could see the flames jumping up to lick the shrimp she was tending. I didn’t say a word, hunger pushing towards the wooden bench in the designated eating area. The other castaways that had ended up on the boat with me followed suit.

The “tour” guide shoved a Corona into one of my hands, not bothering to inquire if I wanted it, and motioned to a bowl of pickled radishes and carrots on the table. A few minutes later a wooden plated piled high with grilled shrimp was set in the middle of the rickety plastic table, along with a stack of homemade corn tortillas, a bowl of diced onions, a bit of cilantro and modified ketchup bottled that had been reused as a homemade hot sauce dispenser.

I didn’t care that the health department in the US would have had a heart attack looking at this place, I didn’t care that there was clearly no running water, gloves or hand washing options. I didn’t care that I had no idea where the shrimp came from. I was starving.

I chugged my sub-par beer, and ate my weight in beer battered fish tacos.. They were amazing. The hot sauce was the best I’ve ever had, and the tortillas were perfect. Since then, I want my tacos simple. Homemade tortillas, some diced onions, maybe some hot sauce or guacamole. No lettuce. No cheese. No sour cream. No ground beef.

Add the beer and oil, stir to combine. If the dough is too dry to hold together, add additional beer or water. If it is too wet, add more Masa. (It should be the consistency of soft Play-Doh)

Form into balls a bit larger than golf balls.

Prepare a tortillas press by wrapping in plastic wrap or covering with parchment paper (you can place tortilla ball between two sheets of parchment and use a rolling pin). Place one ball in the center.

Because if we did we would think about deep-frying, get nervous about it, wonder if people actually like crab and deep fried things as much as we do, worry about the friend who pretends to be gluten free and the guy who’s a vegetarian. And then we’d miss out on the best appetizer we’ve ever made for a football party. And that would be horrible. An actual real life First World tragedy.

Because this needs to be made for the Super Bowl. It’s crab, which can be proudly claimed with strong possession by both Seattle and New England. And so can great beer. And apparently great football teams. And amazing women (Just trust me). It’s a dish that doesn’t take sides, but it knows who’s going to win. It’s the city with the best beer. And the best women. Obviously.

Garlic Beer Butter Cod with Pale Ale Romesco. So easy and SO good. The Romesco is insanely amazing.

Cod needs to be made with butter. It needs the beautiful richness to pull itself up through the firm flesh of this gorgeous fish and have it’s way with the flavors. Cod needs to be seduced by the warm golden pool that’s melted beneath it. Cod’s underrated, overlooked as people reach past these thick white filets to grab a brilliantly pink salmon. The texture is just as good and the flavor is better, it’s more accessible, it makes you want another helping, even when you’ve finished the entire pan. A flavor mellow enough to tease you into begging for more, but strong enough to stand up to a bold romesco. Romesco is the touch that runs the perfect line between rough and gentle. It’s bold, warms, spicy, delicious and demands to be remembered in an effortless-cool sort of way. These two make the perfect partners, add in a beer and some good company and you never know where the night will take you.

Put the almonds in a pan over medium high heat. Pull the pan back and forth across the burner to toss the almonds until the almonds have lightly toasted, about 3 minutes (keep a close eye, they burn quickly).

Add the almonds, red pepper, garlic, tomato puree, parsley, beer, red pepper flakes, smoked paprika salt and pepper to a food processor. Process for about one minute, then slowly add the olive oil until well combined.

Dry the cod well then salt and pepper on each side.

Heat the butter over medium heat until melted, add the garlic and beer, stirring until slightly reduced and thickened (about 5 minutes) making sure to the heat isn’t too high or the garlic will burn.

Add the cod, cooking on each side until cod is cooked through, about 3 minutes per side.

Right out of college I got a job working with gang kids in South Central Los Angeles, like this one and this one. I was prepared to be afraid of them, bracing myself to be on the defense, even packing pepper spray in my purse. I wasn’t prepared to fall in love with them. I worked with kids as young as 5, and as old as 19, all either on probation or in foster care, sometimes both. To this day, some of the kids I met during that time are the smartest, most kind hearted, motivated kids I’ve ever met.

The first year I worked at a group home in a particularly rough part of Hollywood, I tried to make a big deal out of Christmas in a very middle American ignorant white girl kind of way. Let’s decorate the tree! Let’s make Christmas cookies! When I found out that the very small budget the organization had to cover Christmas gifts wasn’t enough to get the kids more than one small gift each, I ran around getting donations. Kids need presents.

To my WASPY surprise this wasn’t well received. The kids, all boys between the ages of 12 and 17, were mostly kind about it, although visibly annoyed. I wanted to know why, what where the traditions they grew up with, what did they miss? A few days before Christmas one of the younger kid, Jamal, offered to help me wrap some of the gifts, so I asked him.

He sighed, not sure how to proceed.

“Is this another one of my white girl questions that you guys tease me about?”

He laughed, “Nah, it’s just…a lot of us don’t got good memories of Christmas. It’s not really our thing. Some kids do. But most don’t.”

He told me he didn’t get presents when he was little because they either couldn’t afford them or his mom was too drunk to buy any. For years he figured that it was because he was bad, that’s the story right? Santa brings presents to good kids, bad kids don’t get any. He also told me a story about waking up on Christmas morning when he was 5, spending it alone because his mom was on a bender. He sat in his living room hoping that Santa wasn’t real. Santa’s lack of existence was comforting, rather than the idea that he was alone and present-less because he was bad. It hit me how terrible the Santa story is for kids that don’t get gifts. My world opened up a bit that day, being taught life lessons by a 12-year-old will do that to you. I’ll never forget his face, so matter of fact, not the tears or grief you’d expect.

I can’t remember what I got for Christmas that year. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to name a dozen gifts I’ve been given over the years. But I’ll never forget Jamal and I hope he never has to spend Christmas alone again.

I’m always drawn to things I know nothing about, comfort zones make me a bit restless. While this can get me into a bit of trouble in my personal life, it has substantial benefits in my saucepans. Take me to a market in an unfamiliar city and I’ll immediately search for an ingredient I’ve never worked with. It was tea mixtures in Morocco, and spices in Costa Rica, and apparently in Seattle, it’s fish cheeks.

The texture is firm, a bit more like scallops than a regular fillet, the flavor a bit sweeter. It’s a cut of fish for people who don’t much care for fish. The crust is simple and the entire dish comes together in about 20 minutes. It’s Sunday Supper good on a weeknight time schedule.

I have this bizarre ability to have strangers confess dark secrets to me without provocation. Several times, after such admissions, they’ll say, “I can’t believe I just said that,” as they further expand upon the revelation. Maybe it’s something in my eyes, or maybe it’s that I have a Master’s Degree in Feelings (Psychology, whatever), or maybe it’s that I genuinely do care about people, but sometimes it’s jarring.

I was at a local market buying salmon when I start chatting with the clerk about my recent move to Seattle from Los Angeles and my love for the Dodgers that hinges on my unabashed adoration of Vin Scully. She’d lived in LA too, decades ago “I left because I had a drug problem,” the 70-year-old checker declared. She gasped and waited for my reaction.

“Looks like you’ve kicked it, congratulations. Seems like it was a good move for you,”

She gave me a childlike smile, “I did some nude modeling too, but that was when I was much younger,”

“Look at you! So saucy, I bet you were quite the dish back then,”

“I WAS!” she said, with a huge grin on her face.

My transaction was complete, salmon packed in my shopping bag so I left, I didn’t want her to Next Level her admission. Although, there was part of me that wanted to invite her over for dinner and hear the rest of her stories. If I got drug problems and nude modeling in 6 minutes at the check stand, imagine what she’d admit to after a few beers.

I once got beligerantly drunk at a cafe in Spain and asaulted a waiter.

That’s probably a bit of an exaggeration, unless you ask the waiter. My sister and I had been traveling south from Madrid on our way to Morocco and stopped for a few nights in Tarifa. My sister is a fantastic traveling companion, mostly because when I get a few drinks in her she giggles like she can’t speak English. She was one of the youngest attorneys in the State, passing the BAR at 22-years-old, she’s one of the smartest people I know and she turns into a school girl when she has a glass of wine, which is fantastic.

We’d ordered sangria (they’d brought us a giant pitcher to share), calamari, and a tortilla espanola. About half way through the sangria, both of us giggling so loudly we officially became “Those Damn Americans” at the back of the resturant. I was starving and it had been 45 minutes since we’d ordered and the food portion of our order hadn’t arrived, the empty stomach giving the Sangria more power than it should have had.

I stumbled through the resrutant looking for the waiter, completely unsure of how to ask about my food with my limited Spanish skills.

I finally find him by the bar, loading a tray of martinis. “ummm….¿Dónde está mi comida?”

“¿Que?”

I wasn’t sure if it was the Spanish slaughtering that he was confused by or the food order.

“Mi Comdia….Tango hambre.” Which, due to the alcohol and lack of Spanish skills, turned into me telling him that I was a man, or a hamburger. This made him more confused, and it made me more frustrated. Which, any man who is trying to feed his hungry girlfriend can tell you, the combination of tired, hungry and drunk does not bring out the best qualities in an otherwise lovely girl.

“Necesito comida!”

He frowned, shoved a menu in my face “¿Qué quieres, SENORITA!?”

I should have been worried about the result of badgering the person who brings me food, but I was too hungry. A few minutes later a plate of food was literally thrown on the table, fried squid falling onto the floor. He didn’t even stop walking when he handed off the comida. Which of course made my sister and I burst out laughing, in a ridiculous display of drunk girl bi-polar emotions. The food was fantastic, and on the way back to our hotel we were chase by a couple “mal chicos” who were trying to sell us cocaine. But that’s a story for another day.

When you find yourself on the recieving end of a hangry woman who “Necesito comida!” this is the perfect soup. It’s full of flavor and warmth, and it only takes 20 minutes. Just don’t throw it at her, she’s not herself when she’s hungry.

And we apologized by leaving a giant tip, we might be unreasonable when we’re drunk and hungry, but we aren’t bad people.

Heat the sesame oil in a pot over medium high heat. Add the shallots, cook until softened, about five minutes. Add the mushrooms, cook until softened. Stir in the garlic then add the stout beer. Add the chicken broth, miso, garlic chili sauce, fish sauce and red chili flakes. Bring to a simmer.

Add the shrimp and noodles, simmer until shrimp is cooked through, about 3 minutes.